Karen Delre, left, delivers a victim impact statement during Stephen Finley's sentencing in 2009. Skin, bone and other tissue was removed from the body of Delre's father in Finley's Newark funeral home.Star-Ledger file photo

The state Parole Board described his crime as an “abomination.” The attorney general called him a danger to the public. Family members of his victims labeled him a ghoul.

For two years, Stephen Finley took part in a scheme to steal human tissue from the corpses that passed through his Newark funeral home.

Bones, skin, ligaments, heart valves and other body parts were secretly harvested and sold — untested for disease and without the consent of relatives — to companies in the medical transplant market.

In 2009, the state permanently barred him from working as a funeral director, stripped him of his license, and sent him to prison for three years.

But Finley, free once again, can’t seem to stay away from the dead.

He recently began working at an Elizabeth cemetery, Rosemount Memorial Park, where part of his job involved handling bodies in the crematory, The Star-Ledger found. He was let go after inquiries from the newspaper.

The disclosure that Finley worked with remains — confirmed by two New Jersey funeral home owners with detailed knowledge of his employment — has elicited fury and astonishment from victims’ relatives, who contend he shouldn’t be permitted anywhere near the deceased.

The finding also has sparked an inquiry by the state Division of Consumer Affairs, which oversees the boards that regulate funeral directors and cemeteries.

Former Newark funeral director Stephen Finley spent three years in prison for his role in a scheme to steal body parts. He is seen here outside the offices of Rosemount Memorial Park in Elizabeth.Aristide Economopoulos/The Star-Ledger

In a statement, Consumer Affairs Director Eric T. Kanefsky said the Board of Mortuary Science “permanently and unequivocally” revoked Finley’s funeral director license “based on the reprehensible nature of his crimes and the anguish he caused to the loved ones of those whose remains he desecrated.”

“Having learned that Finley may have been handling human remains in relation to work he recently performed for a cemetery and crematorium, we are now reviewing the status of that employment and Finley’s specific duties to determine whether Finley and his employer were complying with the 2009 board order or whether there may be cause for further board action,” Kanefsky said.

It’s not clear that Finley violated the law or the revocation order, which prohibits him from working in any capacity as a funeral director, including making arrangements or embalming bodies. Under New Jersey rules, crematory workers do not require a license.
But the families of Finley’s victims — along with funeral directors who regularly use Rosemount Memorial Park for cremations — said his employment there defies common sense.

“I’m just mortified to think he would have his hands on someone’s body,” said Robin Samoilow, a Roselle Park resident whose father, Albert Teufel, was violated in Finley’s Newark funeral home in 2005. “If there was a loophole that allowed him to do this after his release from prison, there should be some action to rectify the situation, because clearly this is a man who never showed remorse and is deeply disturbed.”

Samoilow also questioned why Rosemount would hire Finley given his background.
“The fact that any crematorium would want to use someone in their business with such questionable character is appalling,” she said.

Finley, 50, declined to comment for this report. The Star-Ledger photographed him at the cemetery May 30. The next day, he no longer worked there, said Michael Baratta, Rosemount’s vice president.

In a brief phone interview, Baratta defended Finley’s hiring.

“He’s a man who did his time and paid his dues and is now just looking to move on with his life,” Baratta said. “But everybody’s got their opinion.”

Baratta answered additional questions through e-mail, saying the responses were from the cemetery’s board of trustees.

Finley, he said, was hired to work on a project “for marketing purposes” because of his experience. That project was completed May 29, Baratta said. Finley was on the grounds when The Star-Ledger photographed him May 30 “to say goodbye and answer some questions we had,” the vice president said.

At no time, Baratta said, did Finley have access to human remains.

That contention is directly contradicted by the two funeral home owners, who said Finley routinely removed bodies from hearses and prepped them for cremation.

One of the funeral home owners said he was present at least four times in April and May when Finley unloaded remains in body bags and placed them in cardboard boxes for temporary storage.

The owner spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not permitted under state rules to deliver bodies to a crematory. In New Jersey, only licensed funeral directors may transport remains for “final disposition,” according to the New Jersey Mortuary Science Act, the law governing the funeral industry.

The second funeral home owner said Finley spoke openly of working with bodies in conversation. The owner also requested anonymity, citing a reluctance to become part of a state investigation.

Baratta said Finley was hired at Rosemount after cemetery personnel “made sure it was okay” with his attorney and the court. But a March 15 letter from Superior Court Judge Peter J. Vasquez to Finley’s lawyer, Alan Bowman, suggests Vasquez didn’t think it was a good idea at all. Vasquez presided over Finley’s criminal case.

A Google Maps satellite view of Rosemount Crematory, which sits behind a baseball field off Neck Lane in Elizabeth.Google Maps

“Please be advised that I believe that Mr. Finley’s proposed employment in the capacity of a Cremation Technician would be inappropriate,” Vasquez wrote in the one-paragraph letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Star-Ledger.

It’s not the first time Rosemount has come under state scrutiny. In 1996, the cemetery and its two principal operators, Louis Cicalese and Lawrence Nikola, paid a $60,000 fine after the Division of Consumer Affairs found that bodies had been buried under sidewalks and that up to nine people had been interred in one grave.

The operators also illegally reclaimed burial plots that families had purchased but not used. As part of a settlement with the state, additional counts alleging wrongdoing were dismissed.

Finley’s recent employment there proved troubling to some of Rosemount’s clients.
“He shouldn’t be working there,” said Anamaria Marquez, co-owner of LaPaz Funeral Home in the Bronx. LaPaz frequently uses Rosemount for cremations.

Marquez did not have firsthand knowledge of Finley’s job, but she had heard of the body-parts theft ring that resulted in prison for Finley and other funeral directors in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

“This is a problem for us,” Marquez said. “Families leave their loved one in our hands, and we recommend Rosemount. At the end of the day, we’re responsible.”

Finley’s association with the body parts theft ring took place in 2004 and 2005, though it did not immediately come to light. At the time, Finley owned Berardinelli Funeral Home, also known as Funeraria Santa Cruz, in Newark.

He pleaded guilty to desecrating human remains in January 2009, the same month the state revoked his funeral director’s license. Before Finley’s sentence was imposed, however, investigators found he continued to work in his funeral home in violation of the revocation.

In 2011, while already jailed on the desecration charge, he pleaded guilty to practicing mortuary science without a license. Sentenced to a total of five years for both crimes, he maxed out after three years because of good behavior credits. He was released in April of last year.

The ring’s leader, Michael Mastromarino, was sentenced to decades behind bars in New York. His attorney has said he is dying of bone cancer.

Mastromarino, a former Fort Lee dentist, paid Finley $1,000 for each body. A team of “cutters” would go to Finley’s funeral home and excise tissue for sale to national companies that supplied the transplant market, prosecutors charged.

Authorities have said 100 or more bodies were plundered for parts in Finley’s funeral home alone. In all cases, consent forms required for donation were fraudulent.

The tissue was never screened for disease, as required by law. Hundreds of lawsuits have since been filed by transplant patients who contend they were sickened by tainted tissue.

One of Finley’s victims, James Thornton Sr., had skin cancer and hepatitis C, the result of a previous transplant. Finley allowed Thornton’s skin to be taken anyway, along with bones and other parts.

Thornton’s daughter, Karen Delre, said she was disgusted and frustrated that Finley had again worked with the dead.

“He should have been banned from that industry completely,” said Delre, a Hazlet resident. “I’m sure no one in their right mind would want him to touch their loved ones’ remains after what he allowed to be done in his funeral home.”